Playing Stupid Games: Werewolf Hunters 2018
by TheBlackKnecht
Summary: In the grim darkness of the far future (2018), the Ministry has tried to move on from their oppression of house-elves and their ilk. Unfortunately, discrimination against werewolves remains rife, with violent results. What the Ministry classifies as a werewolf resistance movement has kidnapped a Hogwarts student - and three expendable sixth years will attempt to find him.
1. Prologue

Hooded teenagers stood on an empty Quidditch pitch, their wand tips blazing like torches against encroaching night as they listened to a small figure on a temporary podium.

"The wolfsbane potion was a development that ought to have rendered werewolves harmless, and still could assuming the political barriers to reconciliation fall away. Lies are still preached about their filthiness, lack of morality, and their base predatory urges."

The speaker stopped for a moment to take a sip of water, and eyed the hooded crowd warily.

"Some of these fears stem from the truth - the wolfsbane potion does not moderate the dangerous properties of werewolf-inflicted wounds. It does not help that the wolfsbane potion is hard to brew and has hard-to-acquire ingredients - and tastes terrible. Secret werewolves may not have the means to take the potion."

Here the figure paused to hopefully let the injustice sink into his listeners.

"Integrations have been attempted before but have generally been unsuccessful - known werewolves are barely employable. Even after Umbridge, resistance to integrating werewolves remains due to the dangers they pose - not to mention their well-documented role in kidnapping children and murdering innocents during the Wizarding War. Lamentably, even in the twenty-first century, the werewolves remain a stubborn outlier of resistance among the other more-or-less successful outreaches to traditionally marginalized magical creatures.

"These fears are what has given rise to the Inquisition, fears of a conspiracy that many werewolves live among wizards in secret and convert others in secrecy, making the true werewolf population unknown, and growing."

"But this enmity gets us nowhere. We need to…"

Howls erupted from the Forest. The children screamed, running back toward the castle in terror.

"Cowards," sneered the figure on the podium. It turned towards the menacing shapes dashing out from the tree line.

"Come then. I welcome the chase."


	2. Chapter 1 - A Floating Tavern

"As long as we have a wizard who is of age with us, the Trace will not trigger."

Three teenagers sat on patchwork cushions, around a table where a pot of tea steamed placidly. Shapeless columns of melted wax flickered with oblivious orange flames, nestled in lattice tealights suspended in the air above their heads.

Occasionally cups clinked and portholes creaked as the floor rolled; they were on the Silverlight, a floating bar where people kept their secrets to themselves.

Ever regal, but with a rare expression of worry marring her features, Maelys pursed her lips, delicately taking another sip from her cup, carefully keeping the hanging black sleeves of her dress from touching the dingy table surface.

It was her brother Michael who had been abducted by werewolves, whose rescue the three of them were now plotting. Nearly a month afterwards, her mind was still trapped on that terrible day at the end of her fifth year, when the High Inquisitor had announced in the Great Hall that the werewolf resistance had come out of the Forbidden Forest and taken her brother away with them.

As expected, Maelys had been warned, then threatened against following after her brother, and despite her assurances she was deadly certain at least one member of the Ministry was spying on her directly. It was too obvious - Maelys and Michael were the last of the Van Pelts, and the Inquisitors had expelled Maelys for her headstrong defiance. Rumors had circulated that the willful, stubborn witch would go off into the forest on her own without even attending the awarding of the House Cup.

But Maelys knew herself to be too cunning for that. If she really wanted her brother back safe and sound, she needed a plan, and support. Mother, may she rest in peace, had always said, "When exploring the unknown, never go alone."

Her two partners would be critical to her success. The first was Sauvanne: eyes grotesquely enlarged by massive, thick-rimmed glasses, wearing discolored, second-hand robes too large for her and always brushing twigs out of her hair, she was the living embodiment of the word "geek."

At the moment she was ignoring the discussion, nervously poring through a dogeared copy of "Wanderings with Werewolves", hugging a teacup to her chest like it was a pet chihuahua. Outside of school, Maelys would never have associated with a fashion disaster like her except in this hour of dire need, when her obsessions with unsavory, savage topics would come in handy.

Their third conspirator, whom Maelys was gazing at expectantly, was Richter. Not only was his physical form tall, solid, and imposing, but ever since his third year he had built a reputation as a brawler, and was rumored to have appeared in shady dueling competitions as an illegal entrant. Maelys needed his muscle if she was to stay safe - but more importantly...

"Yes of course, Maelys, I've got that covered. A fellow regular on the dueling circuit, who just came of age and lost the Trace. Even better than I am, I dare say. Along with you and me, we'll be able to cover ourselves in a fight."

Maelys heard light footsteps on the tavern deck and turned. A tall, slender witch stood there, wrapped in scarves and shawls like a knut shop discount rack, silver hair ablaze in the light of streetlamps outside. Richter caught her eye, and she sat down at the table.

With a wave of her wand, Maelys recast her Muffliato Charm so that the newcomer would be exempt from it.

"Hey there Richter! And nice to meet the both of you! I'm Effie. Effie Rowle." Her smile was easy and genuine, and her eyes sparkled with friendliness. And that, to Maelys, was the problem.

"I am Maelys. And this is Sauvanne," Maelys said, cutting off Sauvanne's own attempt to introduce herself (Interrupted, Sauvanne hid herself shyly back in her book) and turning with concern to her male conspirator. "Richter, is she to be trusted?"

"Maelys, would I invite her here if she could not be?" The boy looked amused rather than insulted. Maelys could feel his unspoken dare to challenge the newcomer to single combat. This, combined with Effie's guilelessness, felt unnerving.

"You know that we may fight werewolves. Werewolves with unknown capabilities, who have been fighting off ministry inquisitors for years and broke into Hogwarts without getting caught. We will find the so-called Werewolf King, defeat him, kill him, or otherwise cripple him if we can, but most importantly, escape with my brother. Are you really up to it? I don't know you, and I don't want you to panic and run off when we are in danger."

The silver-haired girl smiled again, showing all of her teeth. Her eyes flashed. Her voice took a toneless cast. "If you knew what I've seen, and where I've been, you would be more worried about yourself. I'm no weak Hogwarts student, bound to a curriculum, stuck in books like your friend." (Sauvanne blushed and sputtered at this but said nothing). "There is a wild magic out there that you have to live in order to learn. You will not fear with me by your side. For the right price, that is."

Maelys felt more than just a little shaken by Effie's sudden reversal in attitude, and she did not like it. Richter, keenly aware of her discomfiture, broke the silence. "If that's all settled then, I think we should move onto supplies, now that we're all here."

"Right," Sauvanne butted in. "The Ministry bulletins I intercepted suggest their Hit Wizards are patrolling deep into the Forbidden Forest but are being turned back by what they refer to as 'natural barriers.' Cryptic, isn't it? And it seems like something is going wrong with the geography, as if the inside of the Forest is going Unplottable or something."

"Richter and I were discussing this earlier, but I don't think we will be able to Apparate inside the Forest at the depth we plan to delve to," added Maelys. Assuming we even dared to Apparate without a license, she added in her mind.

"Indeed!" repeated Sauvanne. "We're on a search mission, so we're going to want to be able to scour the Forest, and maybe break into pockets of warped space, if the werewolves are using places like that to hide."

"I have prepared for that," said Richter. "What I'm going to tell you ladies now CANNOT leave our circle." He hushed his voice and stooped his shoulders. His long hair framed his face like the walls of a golden cave. The girls all hunched down conspiratorially to listen.

"It's something I won in a bet. It should be able to get us deep into the Forest and carry all the stuff we need. If my parents knew I had this, I WOULD BE CRUCIFIED. I...have an enchanted Ford Raptor."


	3. Chapter 2 - A Challenge

The pick-up truck was innocuously parked in Richter's neighbors' garage. "I made them forget they have one," admitted Richter. "Convenient place to hide things, just gotta know how to cover your tracks."

There were flames painted on the sides.

For the sake of Richter's health, those had better have already been there when he got it, Maelys thought, or she might have to manifest them on his body.

Over the course of a day they loaded the back of the pickup with two enchanted chests, each of which, along with the customized truck's expanded cargo compartment, had storage rooms inside where they hid potions, food, first aid kits, tires, fuel. It hurt Maelys to nearly empty her Gringotts vault containing the last of her inheritance to cover their expedition (and Effie's commission), but she reminded herself it was for her brother.

They might have to search for weeks, Maelys thought, bidding a regretful goodbye to the delicate yet flattering mourning dresses she had preferred to wear since her parents' deaths, and instead loaded her trunk with her mother's tougher travel outfits. When she put them on, she could make out a warm, earthy smell that took her back to memories of a small child embracing someone who had just returned from a long trip on an autumn day.

If it took them weeks to find her brother, he might be dead, or worse, turned by the time they found him. Their mission might already be a failure. Then, a discordant voice rudely interrupted her pontification.

"Come on!" Sauvanne called, yanking Maelys's shoulder, utterly oblivious to Maelys's death stare. "I want you to see the inside!"

Piled into the truck's magically spacious interior, on soft leather chairs with their own armrests, the girls felt extremely cozy.

Richter looked the part of a true huntsman, wearing leather armor over his robes and a long knife on his hip. Effie was riding shotgun beside Richter, bobbing excitedly in her seat in…a different set of frilly scarves. Maelys and Sauvanne shared the back, the latter having copied as many pages as she could from useful books into an enchanted folio. Watching the other girl grip her folio between her knees for dear life as she struggled to untangle her satchel straps from her seat belt, Maelys felt the grayness lifting from her.

"...And it even comes with its own Pumpkin Juice dispenser!" Richter gestured proudly at a funny-looking spout on the wall. "I put a month's worth inside."

"I'm sure that will come in handy!" said Effie brightly, her eyes brimming with sincerity. Sauvanne and Maelys stared at each other, then broke into stifled giggles.

Richter coughed, collecting himself for a moment before changing the subject. "I've planned our route out. We can take the Muggle highway we get to Lantern Way, which will take us into the marches. We'll follow Lantern Way until the approach to Urg's Keep, which is on the west of the shallow part of the Forbidden Forest, on the other side of Hogwarts." Maelys nodded in approval. She had selected the entry point herself in private before Richter's briefing. "Sauvanne was kind enough to map out..."

"Indeed!" interjected Sauvanne. She dragged her wand, muttering, causing a crude contour diagram to appear in air from its point with a sputter. Everyone pivoted in their seats to watch her.

"Here: the most likely locations where the Hit Wizard squads were turned back." Xs flashed into existence at the feet of what appeared to be steep hills or precipitous valleys. The map was shaded black in these areas. "The Ministry has already mapped out everything that wizards can reasonably access and haven't found any sign of the wolves, so that must mean they must be hiding behind what could be spatial vortices. Imagine something like a common Undetectable Extension Charm that created space where there doesn't appear to be any, but created by the environment and, well, less understood."

"Nothing like this was here before." Maelys said in a low, haunted voice. "Not while my parents were alive."

"You know something about the Forest?" asked Effie.

"Perhaps it was before your time. My parents, and their parents before them, the Van Pelts, were hunters of magical creatures and explorers of the unknown. These places have always existed, albeit rarely. They were brought on as consultants when your government was looking into controlling the inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest, and led expeditions into it. Something went wrong, and they were found dead."

Really, more like missing massive chunks of flesh, Maelys recollected with a shudder. Dread rose unbidden in Maelys's mind: And now my brother is about to fall victim to the curse of the Forest as well. Maelys flinched, her reason grappling for control over her emotions. The full moon was still far off. There was no way they could have already…

"Fate calls you then," said Effie.

"Huh?"

Her expression suddenly solemn, Effie took a deep breath before replying. "I don't know exactly what, but it's clear something is luring you in. There will be a trap for you personally, something apart from the werewolves we expect to face."

Maelys narrowed her eyes, nonplussed. These conclusions seemed either obvious or irrelevant. Of course she would be as cautious as possible, they were planning to fight werewolves in dimensional rifts, for heaven's sake!

There was something uncanny about this vague prediction, and about Effie in general. But her options were restricted, she needed Effie to avoid the Ministry tracing their magic remotely. They were locked into taking her along on such urgent short notice.

It was all Richter's fault, fumed Maelys.

Sauvanne flipped through her notes. "From the eye witness account of the other fourth year at the scene, which Richter kindly obtained, three wizards of indeterminate age and gender abducted Michael van Pelt from Hogwarts. Presumably, their use of what we suspect to be spacial anomalies allowed them to do so, but it's possible they had some inside help we don't know about. The hoods covering their faces and their sharpened fingernails were what identified them to the Ministry as werewolves."

"And frankly, the werewolf resistance are the only criminals so desperate and so evil as to pull off something like this, anyway." Richter added.

Sauvanne continued. "Since it won't be the full moon for weeks, they will be stuck in human form when we find them. I've got dittany for the wounds if we get hurt, but ideally we'll deal with them from long range. It's good that we have three strong fighters with us, assuming Effie is as good as Richter says she is."

Effie flexed her biceps while Richter felt them, giggling. Maelys rolled her eyes. This was enough. She unbuckled herself and stood up.

"Effie, have a friendly sparring match with me. I want to see what you can do."


	4. Chapter 3 - One Last Night

"Cantis! Tarantallegra!"

The two jinxes shimmered and sputtered on the surface of Maelys's Protego. Please no, thought Maelys. I am not about to start singing and dancing in the middle of a duel.

"Are you dueling seriously, or just attempting to humiliate yourself?" Effie called.

Maelys channeled her indignation. "Silencio!"

Effie deflected this with a careless flick of her wand. "For a friendly duel, I don't need to rely on Protego."

Concentrating, Effie drew from the air half a dozen oversized flaming wizard crackers into existence surrounding her, which she swiftly sent on a trajectory towards Maelys. Maelys gave an involuntary shriek, attempting to put them out with blasting jets of conjured water before they exploded. Several went off anyway, shattering Maelys's shield but thankfully sparing her Mother's clothes from scorch marks.

"Cantis!" repeated Effie.

Father always told me to have a back-up, thought Maelys. "Avis!"

An array of multicolored birds burst into existence, trilling and singing uncontrollably after they intercepted the spell, honing in on Effie and disrupting her view.

The silver-haired witch swept her wand through the avian swarm. "Begone! Expulso!"

The birds exploded, disintegrating into ash as their magic existence collapsed. Maelys was thrown back but scrambled back onto her feet as fast as she could.

"Incarc-" began Effie, leveling her wand, but suddenly she fell back against the ground, her legs snared by a rope conjured by Maelys.

"Take that!" Maelys couldn't help crowing triumphantly. "Now, Silencio!"

Effie took the jinx without flinching. She mutely rolled her eyes at Maelys, then jerked her own wand in a familiar flourish. Maelys landed hard against her back, then to her horror conjured ropes began dragging her by her legs into the air upside down.

Meanwhile, Richter was doing his best to retrieve broken phials of hair gel from the chests, which had been set on fire by the blasts.

Sauvanne hurriedly declared the "friendly" duel a draw.

* * *

"Good morning!"

Maelys rubbed her eyes, staring up at the starry ceiling of her room. It was the last time she would be staying here for a while. At the doorway, she could see an annoying, excited silhouette hammering against the open door.

After the duel, finding new chests and repacking had taken the better part of the day, and driving to the Forest under the cover of darkness felt inauspicious, so they had decided to call it a night and depart in the morning. Maelys had not wanted to spend the night alone in her family's mansion, so she had, against her better judgment, invited Sauvanne to spend the night. The other girl had wandered up and down the empty hallways, marveling at the stuffed magical creatures lining the alcoves, exploring the magically enlarged storage spaces inside the walk-in wardrobes, playing with the astronomy instruments in the east wing, and making a general mess and nuisance of herself.

"My family lives in a flat," said Sauvanne, sighing, as the girls sat down on the balcony for light breakfast tea. "Does your family have a house elf?"

"No," replied Maelys. "To put it simply, we don't trust them."

And besides, Maelys thought, as she gestured a silver tea set, wizard houses could be automated so much these days. Since the laundry, kitchen, mops, and feather dusters were all charmed, her using them didn't even trigger breaches of the decree restricting underage magic.

The girls settled down for buttered toast and tea. More than the taste of the first flush on her lips, Maelys savored Sauvanne's mouth twisting with jealousy as the tea set noiselessly poured them another round. Still, this passed once the first bite of jam and toast was had. As Sauvanne helped herself to slice after slice, Maelys only took small nibbles, lost in pontification about the mission. It was supposed to be Michael sitting there after the end of the school year, eating toast Maelys made for him. She had never imagined having a reason to host Sauvanne at her family's table.

Honestly, Maelys was not even sure Sauvanne was the right choice to come along. The girl had been teased for her incompetence with a wand every year since her first. Just looking past her poor spellwork in the first place had been extremely difficult for Maelys.

* * *

Two years ago, the self-declared Werewolf King declared a war of vengeance in retribution for the perfidy of the Ministry. A number of attacks took place, resulting in the deaths or infection of four prominent members of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Among these were Maelys's parents.

A new Inquisitorial Squad was created at Hogwarts as the anti-werewolf faction in the Ministry rode to power on a wave of fear. Their first target was a student named Sauvanne Selwyn.

Ministry-appointed High Inquisitor Eldrick Trelawney sat over this first impromptu trial of an accused werewolf sympathizer, in a classroom turned into makeshift courtroom. The student inquisitors wore hoods to hide their faces as they presented the evidence: Sauvanne's vast collection of werewolf-related histories and field guides, anatomically correct models, wolf-themed clothing and paw-printed underwear, and worst and most damning of all, her stash of erotic werewolf fiction, much of it self-penned.

It was Maelys, incensed at their exploitation of her to scapegoat and humiliate an obvious innocent, who had torn off her hood and argued that they needed someone with Sauvanne's mastery of the subject to help them defend themselves, that they had something to learn from her.

As a recent orphan of the werewolf attacks Maelys had been almost immune to scrutiny and ridicule. Sauvanne had been reluctantly acquitted. And Maelys had become the only Inquisitor to be ever expelled from the squad.

* * *

After breakfast, Maelys took one last look at two photographs. One was of her parents, her and Michael, taken four years ago. All of them were smiling. She was ruffling her brother's head. She kissed the picture goodbye, and promised herself to see her brother smile again.

The other photograph was of ten students. Three of them were Richter, Sauvanne, and Maelys. They were the Hunters, the counterpart to the Inquisitors, their mission statement to defend themselves and others with truth instead of fear. Next to Maelys in the photo was Travers, the boy who had built the auror scanner that let them intercept auror communication, using what he claimed were family secrets. He, like the rest of the remaining six Hunters, was stuck at home, unable to join them.

Maelys considered dispatching her family's aged owl, Helix, with letters to them describing her plan to save her brother, but decided against it. They were probably being watched. Instead, she sent Helix to Travers only, with a letter asking him to take care of the bird while she was away.


	5. Chapter 4 - Shadow and Fire

On the highway, Maelys was gazing boredly at the rearview mirror of the Raptor when she spied it and called the attention of the others.

"That car is following us."

For some reason, the silver sedan of unknown make was difficult to pick out from the crowd of cars behind them. That in itself was suspicious, if it were not for the fact that it only seemed to appear in the mirror. Behind them there was perhaps a misplaced glare of sunlight to signify something was out of place.

"I thought I saw it tailing us earlier but I thought we lost it when we got to the highway," groaned Richter.

"Were they also spying on us during our meeting at the Silverlight? How much do they suspect?" said Maelys, worried.

"It's…becoming harder to look at," said Sauvanne, squinting." It's…it's somehow dodging to the edge of my vision when I try to stare at it!"

"…What are you staring at Sauvanne?" asked Richter. The mirror was empty now.

"There's…nothing behind us," whispered Maelys absently. "Stop craning your head, it will injure your neck." Sauvanne turned forward obediently, confused.

"Don't worry. I'll deal with them," said Effie.

She opened the sunroof and stood up, her head and arms outside, silver hair tossed on the airstream. Her wand sat untouched on her belt. Maelys made out the witch's lips moving, though the wind carried the words away. Effie's finger pointed straight at the car that suddenly appeared behind them.

At the next exit, the sedan turned off while the teens continued down the highway.

"Was that...was that a wandless Confundus Charm?" Sauvanne whispered at Maelys, mirroring Maelys's own disbelief on her face. Confundus was already difficult - but to do it wandlessly?

"I was afraid of dropping my wand outside the car, or letting the Muggles see it," Effie bubbled cheerily. "It was just necessity and luck, that's all."

Maelys and Sauvanne kept a lookout, but no additional cars drew up behind them. Richter turned his music up. Immediately, Maelys cast a Reverse Muffliato Charm on herself so that she couldn't hear the others singing to Selkie's latest single.

* * *

Two hours in, Maelys recognized a crooked tree standing alone on a hill, bearing no leaves and tapped on Richter's shoulder. He too saw the tree, and turned towards it. They left the shoulder of the highway and continued onto the grass, slowing down. Behind them, the Muggles using the highway continued on their way, seemingly oblivious to the odd behavior of Richter's truck.

Maelys swirled her wand above her head, staring at the tree. "Silva Aperio!" The grass underneath the truck turned into a rough obsidian track. Above them, the world unfolded like the pages of a pop-up book. Blue sky broke apart into squares of darkness that turned back into tall branches covering the sky, filling the horizon.

"As Mother and Father taught me," thought Maelys wistfully.

They passed the hill, and entered the Forbidden Forest, following a path carved by the Ministry only recently, to supply their operations beyond Urg's Keep. They stopped for lunch in the Forest. Sauvanne made herself and Maelys cold cut sandwiches, while Effie boiled soup in her canteen and Richter slurped down the contents of a tin of green slime in which white chunks floated ("It's just cheese, guys!"). In the daylight it felt like a normal, safe camping trip to any mundane location - as long as they ignored the wispy fluff hung from the wizened branches, the oddly melodious bird song echoing faintly through the trees, and the smell of blooming flowers they could not see.

Watching the others in good cheer, Maelys was reminded of her first journey into the Forbidden Forest. While her parents erected a tent under an Extension Charm, she had marveled at the mystery of the place. Michael had begged for hot cocoa, and her father had brought steaming mugs of it to her and her brother.

It took them many more hours of tense but uneventful journey, during which evening fell and lengthened the creeping shadows of ancient trees, but finally the truck drew near to the glowing window slits of Urg's Keep. The ancient castle's stern crellanations were a welcome sight; its stony silhoutte appeared a stout barrier against the thorny, grasping trees that surrounded it.

Suddenly, a disheveled man planted himself with a wet squelch against the driver-side door. Richter slammed the brake in a panic as Sauvanne screamed helplessly. He wore a black Ministry suit, and a trenchcoat covered in leaves. His face was twisted, frozen in an agonized rictus. Maelys could not tear her eyes away.

Faintly, words came through the door. "...warn you before...is fractured...no time, turn back..."

And then all the lights, even the stars glowing beyond the leaves of the Forbidden Forest, were yanked out of existence. Everything went dark.

* * *

Maelys felt herself waking up. She was still wearing a seatbelt. It was utterly silent - not even the breathing of her companions reached her ears. She could see nothing - but the darkness was squirming.

"Expecto patronum!" A silver wolf dashed past the window beside her, revealing that the squirming darkness enveloping the car was alive and retreating from its glow.

Full awareness returned to Maelys. Adrenaline coursing through her, she opened the door and ran out, wand in hand.

"They're Lethifolds" Sauvanne yelled. Next to her, Effie was cowering behind Richter and his stallion Patronus as it shielded the three of them. "But they're stronger than they should be."

How dare these creatures block her path! fumed Maelys. Their insolence would be punished. "Inflamarae!" "Inflamarae maximus!"

Creeping flames spread along the edges of the darkness. It curled and squealed, fragmenting into massive, manta ray like sections that fluttered away from the truck, still blazing.

There was no escape, Maelys thought to herself. Her spell would burn them until they were nothing. As the creatures fled, hatred drained out of her, replaced by tiredness.

Richter went to check on the engine and tires, still accompanied by his Patronus, while Sauvanne dismissed her own with an embarassed cringe. Effie conjured several floating balls of light to illuminate the area around the truck, but no further intruders appeared, lethifold, human or otherwise.

There was no sign at all of the man in the suit. Maelys gulped and scanned the road ahead for further obstacles, then saw that all the lights in Urg's Keep were out. The way station seemed quiet and deserted. There were no vehicles or brooms visible outside.

"Maelys, thank goodness I can at least do something against Lethifolds!" said Sauvanne exuberantly, approaching her from behind. "Though, I'm actually not sure if those were Lethifolds. But they were definitely dark things of some kind!"

"They put us to sleep and started chewing on the Raptor," said Richter, joining in. "We were actually out for some time before their power over us wore off, but the Raptor saved us." He blew it a proud kiss. "Effie and I are going to strengthen the Hardening Charms on her frame in case we find more creatures like them."

Effie. She had been utterly useless, Maelys thought to herself, but said nothing.

"That...does not look good." Sauvanne said, staring at Urg's Keep with a tone of fright creeping into her voice. "Do you think it's safe to go inside?"

Left unspoken was the horrible thought that it might be full of strangled bodies and engorged Lethifolds. None of them even wanted to imagine what might have happened to the man who seemed to have been trying to warn them.

Back at the truck, the four gathered inside its enlarged cabin, clutching piping cups of pumpkin juice. Maelys laid out her plan. "We do not need supplies, and we definitely do not need to court risk by investigating the Keep. We should just continue on the path and head towards the nearest dimensional anomaly as planned. We also need to check the scanner to see if the Ministry is communicating any threats to their aurors."

Maelys drew her wand and tapped a compact, object resembling an early twentieth-century radio, bristling with antennae. Handling Travers's contribution to the expedition made Maelys miss him again.

No matter how many times she activated it or reconfigured its dials, only static came out. The expressions of the others became noticeably grimmer.

"But what if there're survivors in the Keep? And they need rescue?" Richter asked.

Everybody eyed him with reluctance and disbelief. He shut up.

* * *

In the end, nobody wanted to turn back. Maelys could not abandon the search for her brother. Richter boasted that he was brave enough to take anything, and Effie claimed the same was true of herself. Sauvanne gave a little smile and said that with so many other great wizards and witches with her, what did she have to be afraid of?

Effie, Maelys and Sauvanne held their wands drawn as Richter crept the truck deeper into the dark forest. Maelys dared only steal infrequent glances at the trail ahead lit by the headlights, wary of what they might illuminate. Somewhere out there, presumably, was a thing that not only drove off or incapacitated an entire Ministry garrison but also cut off contact with the outside. Assuming the lethifolds had not been responsible - they had been beaten too easily for Maelys to believe that. If only she had been more cautious earlier. Who knew what signs they had missed on the drive up here?

Sauvanne gasped. In front of the headlights was a yawning tear overlayed with a starry sky, lying on the ground like a frayed blanket stretching uncannily into the distance. Maelys felt ill as her eyes tried to focus on the boundary between normal soil and ethereal sky - and failed.

"There...there shouldn't have been anything here," whispered Sauvanne, consulting her floating map.

"The contagion is spreading," said Effie. "Maybe Urg's Keep itself was overtaken by one, but we didn't realize it."

"We were investigating these anyway," said Maelys. "Richter, drive over it."

"At once!" Richter replied, hammering the gas before anyone could object.

At about the point where the wheels should have touched the patch of weird sky, the truck stopped moving forward, and suddenly began to fall.


	6. Chapter 6 - The Worm

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

All four magicians strained with the effort of keeping themselves and their luggage in the air. The truck hovered, threatening to flip over, above the surface of a dire-looking swamp. The dislodged supply trunks they had managed to charm bobbed in the air around it.

Anything they had missed landed in the mud and quickly sank out of sight.

"I wish the guy I won this from had also enchanted it to fly," moaned Richter.

"Duro!" said Maelys, pointing her wand at the swamp. Slowly, a smooth patch of grey stone appeared in the middle of the swamp, growing as Maelys held her wand and focused as much power as she could into her spell. Richter joined his own strength with Maelys, helping to widen the surface until it could hold the entire truck.

Sauvanne's levitation spell quickly spluttered out as its caster became exhausted. Maelys was torn with indecision as to whether to continue her spell or break off to help with the lifting, but Effie continued to hold up the whole truck by herself, her arms outstretched and rigid as she brought the truck and remaining trunks down gently.

"Good job," Maelys said, reluctantly.

"What do we do now?" asked Richter. "Do we need to make a road?"

Effie, meanwhile, was staring at the sky. "Those stars are not of our world."

Much of the sky was covered in swirling clouds, following a strangely curved wind as if a silent typhoon was calling them.

At the edge of their field of view, clear sky peeked through, dusted with foreign constellations. There was no sign of the tear through which they had fallen.

Effie's face went blank. Her voice dropped to a murmur. "They laugh at us. They say we are doomed. It is written in their dance."

"Look," Maelys pointed. "The clouds cluster around a focal point not far from here. That will be the eye of the storm. There must be something there."

"We're sinking!" cried Sauvanne.

"We can't keep this up!"

Even after being hardened, the mud kept breaking back apart. The truck rocked back and forth as Richter and Maelys strained to balance their focus between keeping it from sinking and patching new holes of ooze that bubbled through. Effie sat cross-legged on the front of the truck, eyes closed in concentration as her magic dragged the disintegrating mud island towards the eye of the storm.

Sauvanne suddenly shook excitedly, almost dropping her omnioculars. "Guys! I see green!"

Then suddenly Maelys had the wind knocked from her, and for the second time that night she was falling. The last thing Maelys heard before splashing into the mud was a horrible, incongruous noise of grating wood.

The swamp swallowed her like it was quicksand on a starvation diet. It was dark and deep and Maelys could not breathe. Spots began to appear in her vision as she struggled to even move.

No, I refuse to drown, screamed Maelys internally. "Ascendio!"

It cost her a lungful of mud, but Maelys shot out of the swamp into the air like a bullet. On the way down, she saw it.

It was impossible to miss the massive creature that had emerged from the swamp.

It was like a worm, in the way that a living tower made of rotten wood, covered with peeling white paint, bent and broken into segments that twisted and spiraled in nauseous fractals, might be mistakenly classified among the annelids.

It leered at her with a noseless human face, smooth and motionless like a forgotten mannequin. The hollow sockets of its bleached countenance were each filled with human eyeballs, crammed in so tightly together they pressed outward in a trembling bulge. One fell out, trailing its desiccated nerves, and landed in the mud with a faint 'plop'.

Then it dove forward, biting a chunk out of the distressed pick-up with a maw made of void, sinking back into the muck with a grinding, splintering clamor.

As Maelys fell she felt a tug changing her trajectory. Effie was waving her wand pulling Maelys towards an Enlarged floating trunk Transfigured into a raft. Maelys landed with a splash and Effie pulled her aboard.

As Maelys coughed the mud from her throat, she looked around. Richter had climbed on top of the ruined pick-up, brandishing his magically-enlarged knife like a sword. He looked as if he was about to be sick. And Sauvanne…Sauvanne was nowhere in sight.

"Damn it!" Every fiber of Maelys resisted the thought of being below the muck again, but she let go of the trunk.

"I think it's aiming for the Raptor!" Richter yelled. "I'll cover it. Don't worry about me!" He drew his wand along his blade, covering it in flame.

Right then. The Bubblehead Charm ought to help out this time. Maelys cast it.

"Don't do it." Effie had snatched her sleeve. "She's gone." Maelys could see the constellations of the other dimension reflected in the eyes of the silver-haired witch, spelling out the whims of a cruel destiny.

She tore herself free. "Bugger off." She dove.

Even with the magical pocket of air around her head, she could see next to nothing in front of her in the mud. Where to go, where to go? There was a spell for this…

"Homenum Revelio!"

Above her, she felt the shadowy presences of Richter and Effie – and inexplicably, deep below her, another shadow flickered weakly.

Oh come on, thought Maelys, kicking as hard as she could to speed up her descent.

It only occurred to her halfway that Richter might be mistaken, and maybe the thing was bearing down on her. She imagined the soggy deformation of freely moving eyes squishing against each other, leaking their corneal juices into the very medium she swam in.

This was somehow her reality now. Please, why!?

Her hand brushed something soft. It did not struggle or resist. Maelys's heart leapt into her throat. For a moment she was a helpless little girl again, crying as her brother choked on too many sweets, and Mother said something to clear his passages…

"Anapneo!" The thing she brushed began to jerk. Maelys cast the Bubblehead Charm on it too, hoping it would take. It was time to escape.

This time, her Ascending Charm encountered a suspicious amount of resistance. It felt like an eternity before Maelys's bubble-enclosed head broke the surface of the mud. She turned to the limp cargo she had brought with her and screamed.


	7. Chapter 7 - Confrontation

They pulled what was left of it onto the bank, but it was indisputable that the pickup was ruined without its rear half. While Richter sobbed over its corpse, now forever bereft of decorative flames, another girl clutched something else dear to her, sobbing incoherently.

With her hair still glued to her head by drying mud, Maelys was unsympathetic. "Why the blazes were you clinging to that trunk you dimwit? We nearly…we nearly…"

A particularly loud sob turned into a hacking cough. A small clod of dirt fell from Sauvanne's mouth as she hugged the luggage she had saved. "It…it has my supplies…my spare glasses…my wolfsbane ingredients…those are so expensive."

Effie's shadow overshadowed Sauvanne's shuddering form in the pale starlight. "Maelys. This was all your fault, you know.

"The stars of this place say we are doomed. We have no exit, and now, no transport. We've lost everything except for your companion's useless herbs. ("That's not true," muttered Richter. "My pumpkin juice dispenser is fine.")

Maelys clenched her hand on her wand. "Oh. Really, O prophet? You signed up for this! You knew we were going to travel into places like…places like this! This is all part of the territory. Are you suddenly chicken, you toothopaste-headed bitch?"

Effie did not budge. "I have been inside 'places like this' before. You think that monster was something? That was a house pet compared to the horrors I've experienced. I've seen worlds where time flows in circles and writhing flesh fills every bit of space. Sometimes you don't even see the monsters before they've eaten every shred of your existence except for your ability to scream. If we had stopped to think, actually formulated a plan, I would have explained how to probe the rift in the first place to stop us from getting stranded here!"

Maelys's lips quivered, shaking with anger, but no sound came out. Then she laughed. And laughed.

"I knew it! Always, you have been against us, ever since the very beginning. I was right to be suspicious of you. You have too much power, too much knowledge to be someone our age. You lead us in circles as if we were blind children. Now you demoralize us so you can manipulate us, pick up the scraps. You're a Polyjuiced werewolf, you traitor, are you n…"

"MAELYS!"

Sauvanne was pointing at the sky, where the clouds whose patterns they had been following were rapidly dispersing. And hanging like a fleshless skull in the middle of the emptying sky was a full moon.

There was howling, howling in the distance that slowly grew louder.

Richter was the next to speak. "Run. RUN!"

There were not three werewolves. There were probably more than fifty, running in a massive unceasing line of pupil-less eyes and foam-flecked fur, prowling aimlessly through the starlit moor. The pounding drumbeat of their claws against the torn ground was only matched by their bloodcurdling howls, hungry and unceasing, echoing off the ominous hills as they raced headlong towards the horizon where the moon dipped low, lurking like a beckoning diabolist.

"I guess there probably isn't much food here for them, except…each other?" mused Richter.

Sauvanne elbowed him through the muck.

It had taken no mathematician to judge from the increasing volume that the sources of the howls would have outrun the drained, tired teenagers. Richter had led them back into the swamp where they had waited, treading the liquid mire, praying that neither lupine predators nor leviathan worm-mannequins would discover them and that they had enough energy to keep from sinking.

When the howls were gone, the group slowly trudged their way back to solid land. Near the bank, Maelys came to a stop, covering her face with her hands and refusing to be dragged by Sauvanne and Richter.

"Michael…Michael!" she repeated blankly.

It was her nightmare. In this hellscape he was either dead or one of the pack. Or maybe, just maybe they had fallen down the wrong rift, to be chased by completely unrelated werewolves who would soon tear them limb from limb.

Maelys felt her shoulders held tight by broad hands – she was being shaken by Richter. She stared up into his eyes, the moonlight shining through his pale gold locks.

"No. We've come this far. We're still alive, and we still have hope! We promised each other never to surrender, never to give up! You must keep fighting. You have to!"

Sauavanne hugged Maelys tight as Richter continued.

"Michael was brave and clever. He would find a way out of this. We need to have faith in him. You need to have faith in him! There is a mystery here we don't fully understand. We will solve it and bring Michael home. All of us will go home!"

There was a sound of slow, sarcastic clapping. Richter stood silent, but Sauvanne turned to Effie with hurt in her eyes as the older witch came closer.

Effie smacked Maelys's cheek lightly, but the girl did not react. "She's broken. You can't get through to her now. Just petrify her and levitate her along with us."

Turning away, Effie conjured a lump of solidified mud, and sat down on it. "Trust me, we're in too deep. Our best move is to withdraw. Regroup. Resupply and come back with reinforcements. These werewolves can't have grown here, so my hunch is that they were taken here. If someone put them here on purpose, then they must have a way out. And remember…"

Mud erupted into air like a geyser. There was a rush of something long, moving at immense speed, and a grinding of wooden slats that threatened to burst Maelys's ear drums. Towering over them was the worm-mannequin, mud falling away from its awful grin. Maelys stared into its multifaceted, punctured eyes, and found that she was frozen - Richter and Sauvanne were carrying her with them as they half-swam, half-stumbled away. Effie was on her feet, waving her arms, shouting something, but Maelys could not make out her words – everything felt dim and faraway.

The worm-mannequin dove again. Its maw was met with a bright electric burst fired unwaveringly from Effie's hands – and kept coming. There was no time for Effie to react before it was upon her.

And then there was nothing but its horrible fractal hide, spinning and spiraling greedily as it began to sink back into the mire.

The immediacy of burning anger dispelled the cloud of Maelys's despair. Nobody deserved this, Maelys thought. "Inflamarae maxima!"

Flames wreathed the worm-mannequin, with a curious effect on its outwardly wooden skin. Chipped white scale-like paint flaked off in the magical heat, and underneath, the surface turned black and glossy. The monster submerged itself, extinguishing the ineffectual flames.

"Reducto!" yelled Richter, blasting the mud in front of him into a towering geyser. Maelys raised her wand to do the same, her eyes scanning the churning mud.

Then a horrifying pale face erupted from underneath her feet. As she stared into the empty pits of its eye sockets, black ink burst out of its frozen void-like rictus of a mouth, covering her eye and the left side of her face. It burned, it shocked, it chilled her to her bones. It felt like something intangible inside her was being sucked into a starless emptiness while she tried to scream but had forgotten how to.

And then there was nothing for Maelys as she fainted away and the world went black.


	8. Chapter 8 - Invigoration

Jaws descending.

Maelys could see inside that hollow head, eternal darkness swallowing her.

Jaws descending.

A tiny paper figure in the shape of a girl crumpled and tossed by the current of a muddy river.

Jaws descending.

There was something burning away at her face, like a wood burner was carving its way across her skin. Jagged spikes of agony lancing down with electric venom into the corner of her shattered skull.

No.

It could not be. She did not see her die. She could not be dead. She could not be dead. She could not be dead. SHE COULD NOT BE DEAD!

Maelys woke up screaming.

There were no stars, just an earthen ceiling. She lay on faintly luminescent moss that filled the shallow cave with pale blue light.

There was no more pain. She felt comfortable. No, she HAD felt comfortable. It was impossible to feel comfortable after remembering how you saw someone die in front of you for the first time. It was impossible to lie back and rest when you knew you were lost forever on the wrong side of a tear in space with things that were not supposed to be.

How did she end up here? She remembered her plans, and the confidence with which she had led her friends into this unknown realm, but somehow her memories of the past leading up to that seemed blurred, as if made of running paint. Intellectually she could reconstruct the day her brother vanished, and the days that followed, but she could no longer reconnect to her remembrances of bitter sulking and fevered plotting, as if part of her soul had been chewed away.

In many ways she was paying the price of her arrogance. Maybe she had misjudged Effie. She should have sat down with Effie and asked her advice. Maybe she could have used her better. It was too late now. All this was her own, all this was Maelys's…

She shut the thought off.

It was like when mother and father died. Maelys took a deep breath. She made herself stop feeling. Upon reflection, it wasn't as if she had liked Effie that much in the first place. As always, Maelys would be fine. Fine.

"Hello Maelys." Richter's voice was slow and cracked. His eyes had bags under them, but he still smiled. "Look, I saved you the last of the Pumpkin Juice."

After Maelys drank from the dented bowl, she asked, "Where is Sauvanne? And how did we get here?"

"Foraging. She was oddly insistent that I stay behind to keep you safe while she went out. As for our whereabouts, Sauvanne had just got you out of the swamp when the wolves came back. I had to drag you after me – Effie was right, it was easier with Mobilicorpus. I thought we were down for the count until I fell through a carpet of moss and roots into this pit. It seems there's a whole underground ecosystem or something here." His robes were indeed badly shredded.

"You look quite a wreck. Just how long have I been out?"

Richter sighed like a punctured tire. "I quickly learned there's no way to track time in this world. The moon never, ever sets. I snuck out, got the pumpkin juice, came back here, slowly rationed my way through it. Every time I looked at the moon, it was still full and bright as ever.

And I was so worried you would never wake up, and I would be left alone here."

Maelys closed her eyes in understanding. "At least we know why the werewolves use this place. The unsetting moon. This must be a key component to their plan. If they have one."

Richter frowned, scratching his head thoughtfully. "I remember the swirl of the clouds when we arrived here. They haven't returned since we arrived. We were heading towards their center when we were interrupted."

He paused, hesitant. "We could still try to make it there."

They could. It was the only way forward Maelys could see. But – it all seemed hopeless to her. Even if they somehow found wizards they could duel instead of a horde of rabid magical beasts, they were down one of their heavy-hitters (Maelys regretfully allowed herself to award Effie a little posthumous recognition. Just a little.).

"Richter, let me ask you a question. Why?"

A wistful smile returned to his face. "Why did I risk everything I had for certain, horrifying death? Why am I trapped with you in a tiny hole under a dimension full of terrible monsters? My code of course. Actually, it was your code."

No, why bring it up now, when things are serious, Maelys thought, knowing what Richter would say next. She cringed but said the words together with him anyway.

"'To defend the weak and fight for truth.'"

"Yes," Richter continued. "The words of the Hunters, as you told us that fateful day. Sauvanne was crying, I remember."

The look on his wan face grew bitter.

"I used to look down on all of you members of the old wealth. Always concerned with your image and connections, looking out for only yourselves, and never passing up a chance to rub the noses of your lessers in the dirt. I can't tell you how much I wanted to punch your stupid haughty faces whenever the professors doled special treatment out to you just because of who your families were. I got so good at dueling by beating down the bootlickers who revolved around you in your Silver Serpent Club all those years ago. Back then I knew, once I got out of Hogwarts, I didn't know how but I was going to bring down all of you.

"When I heard about your stand against the Inquisitors though, I was shaken to my core! You and your bullies used to make the lives of girls like Sauvanne a living hell, and yet what you rejected the easy way of condemning her before a hostile crowd. It felt so noble, so quixotic, so paradoxical, it puzzled me. I knew I had to keep a closer eye on you. I need to make sure you had really turned over a new leaf, make sure you didn't stray from the path. And now your road has led into the abyss itself.

"You know why nobody else joined you Maelys? Out of the other half-dozen of us who once called themselves Hunters? It's because they didn't believe in your motto, in your words, like I did. They appreciated the imagery, that it was a good way to set themselves apart from the Inquisitors so they could act righteous and sneer at them, and jockey for social superiority. But when it all came down to the wire, they cut and run, because they were cowards at heart, savvy enough to realize we were walking into certain death."

I never lived by those words either, thought Maelys. I should never have said them.

But she could not help but laugh. And Richter, probably misunderstanding her, laughed too.

"You deserve help from the friends you inspired, Maelys. The further I come with you, the more I feel I did the right thing. We will, we must rescue your brother."

Folly, pure folly, Maelys thought to herself, but the tug of Richter's convictions still drew her back from the edge of despair. Maybe this was the end. But Richter had the right of it – she had to put aside her absolute certainty of death, and maybe be a little stupid and irrational, but keep going down the only path in front of her. Until the curtain fell Maelys would struggle. It was the only way to carry on her parents' legacy. It was her only way to be true to herself.

Maelys reached out her hand and clasped Richter's with renewed firmness. "Thank you. I have never given up until I got my way before. I will not start today. Or tonight.

"First we will need provisions. Water is no issue, so hopefully Sauvanne will bring back food from the wreck. Then we will look for familiar landmarks to follow to the epicenter of the storm." Richter was staring at her in utter confusion. "What? What is the matter?"

"…Water is no issue?" Richter croaked in utter bafflement.

Maelys sighed. "You do know that Aguamenti makes potable water right? That means you can DRINK IT!"


	9. Chapter 9 - Corruption

"Scourgify!"

The last of the mud vanished from Maelys's robes. She was glad to see her mother's clothing was undamaged once the dirt was gone.

Then a scream and the sound of rustling papers drew Maelys's attention to the entrance to their temporary resting place.

Bundles of wax paper spilled from Sauvanne's hands as she entered the cave. Some of the wrappers unfolded, releasing some sad-looking corned beef and mustard sandwiches onto the luminescent floor.

As Sauvanne stared at Maelys wide-eyed and sputtered like a dying car, Maelys could see Richter trying to pantomime her into silence with only minute, timid motions of his hands.

"It's me, isn't it?" Maelys said, cocking her head. She drew her wand. "Accio!"

"No, no, Maelys, don't look now." "It's not that bad!"

But it was too late. The hand mirror flew out of Sauvanne's satchel and landed squarely in Maelys's palm, mirror side up.

Not bad for someone who just spent hours asleep on the floor, thought Maelys as she scrutinized her face for lines. It was too bad her own mirror was lost at the bottom of the swamp somewhere. Then she saw the change, and understood.

The upper left side of her face above her cheek was a matted sheet of glossy hair, matching her normal black locks, but it had merged or been sewn into her skin. It was as if part of her head had melted like a plastic toy on a stove. Unsettlingly, Maelys could still see out of her nonexistent left eye, though it was nowhere to be found, buried, perhaps, in her new, aberrant flesh.

Perplexed, she dug her finger into the middle of the fleshy veil of hair where her eye socket should have been, and watched in the mirror as it sank knuckle deep into a bottomless void of twisted, wiry tresses. The hole itself felt oddly numb and tight at the same time. Sauvanne, crying and desperately trying not to vomit, pleaded with her to stop.

Presumably this was the effect of the swamp monster's spit on her. Maelys prayed it was something easy to fix like a normal Transfiguration mishap.

"Well, it hasn't been getting worse. I've, uh, been keeping my eye on it for a while," Richter offered, as Maelys tried a tentative 'Episkey' to no effect.

Maelys put down the mirror. She felt less upset than she had any right to be. Perhaps the whole weirdness of their journey was getting to her, but all she wanted to do right now was fill the giant void in her stomach. Solving problems could wait till later.

"I guess we should eat then?" Maelys suggested, summoning half a sandwich to her hand. "I would rather die from mysterious magical corruption than from starvation."

"None for me thanks," whimpered Sauvanne, her face green.

Maelys's unexplainable affliction filled the trio with a renewed sense of urgency as they trekked through the caves in search of an exit. Maelys was still holding Sauvanne's mirror in her hand, turning it to catch different angles of the new blemish on her face. In the dim blue light of the cave, it resembled a leather eyepatch, or a stained bandage covering the side of her face under her hairline. Maelys thought it made her a little more mysterious.

Somewhere distant, Maelys could hear the mirror's original owner arguing with Richter. Sauvanne was babbling something about how the tunnels had all led up instead of down before, and about non-Euclidean geometry, but Maelys didn't care.

She was drifting in a state of reasonable numbness, having come to terms with how everything about their situation was utterly hopeless. They were trapped with no way of getting home, and despite numerous summoning attempts, most of their equipment was still lost in the mud. One of them was already wormfood. Maelys herself might be permanently disfigured. There were monsters everywhere, they were trapped underground, and her brother was nowhere in sight.

Well, what else could go wrong?

Maelys was suddenly aware that five other copies of Sauvanne were blocking the exits of the cavern chamber they had just entered. The real Sauvanne shrieked and tried very hard not to let her knees buckle in panic.

"Be quiet. Maybe they're benign." Richter chided. But Maelys could see from his face that he wasn't so sure.

The Sauvanne-things merely stood silently, motionless. Not even the strands of hairlike material sticking messily out of their heads even twitched. What appeared to be their large, round eyeglasses were utterly opaque. Their surfaces seemed oddly fuzzy in the eerie wandlight, and their features slightly blurry and indistinct. Maelys realized their robes flowed continuously into the ground.

They must be made of moss or lichen, or some other tiny plant thing, Maelys guessed. And if they were, they could burn. She could feel the urge to set them on fire growing. Then she thought about the patch of hair melted onto her face and decided to hold back for now.

Richter slowly approached one with his dagger drawn. When he came without half a meter of the nearest one, Maelys couldn't bear it any longer.

"Don't just poke it, you idiot. You're a wizard, cast some protection spells, for crying out loud!"

Richter hesitated. Maelys thought she could hear his stomach cramping audibly from dread. He raised his wand, thought better of it, and shuffled back sheepishly to rejoin Maelys and Sauvanne as they huddled together in the center of the cavern.

"How the hell did you go out here by yourself, Sauvanne?" Richter said. "Maybe you're a doppelganger too."

"I went up! Up, not down! I had no idea these caves would even do this!" Sauvanne insisted. "…and I had my Patronus," she added in a tiny whisper.

"Hello Sauvanne," came a rumbling purring growl, bubbling like molten lava through cracked earth. "Do you like my effigies of you? I've been waiting for this for a long, very long, time."

The lights flickered and the cavern shook with each intonation. The light from the moss grew dark, and a curtain of will o'wisps flicked into existence, draped across an angle of space in the chamber, photon geometries snapping in and out of vision as Maelys tried to focus her eyes on them. They danced with a grim malevolence.

Was it her imagination, or were the Sauvanne clones smiling?


	10. Chapter 10 - Helplessness

"Do I…know you?!" Sauvanne's voice was reduced to the merest squeak of petrified distress. Could it be, Maelys wondered, that the girl recognized the spectre that now haunted them?

"Once upon a time," came the ominous intonations of the disembodied voice, "there was a poor, sad, lonely little girl. Why, the pathetic little brat had no friends at all! Some kind – very kind – monsters took pity on her and asked them to play with her. But the ungrateful little girl betrayed them. Oh yes, she betrayed them to cruel inquisitors, armed with brands of fire, so that those hypocrites could be her friends instead!"

The whirling radiant perturbations filling the air twisted with abrupt finality, and suddenly standing in their midst were two grotesquely misshapen figures, both flanking Sauvanne. Their lanky bodies were draped in loose, dun-colored cloaks, but their true lycanthropic nature was unmistakable. Maelys felt the hackles rising on her neck as the taller one bent over Sauvanne, and smiled with oversized, yellow fangs while the poor girl quailed. Foamy slobber oozed from its rancid maw onto her terrified face, splattering off her glasses.

And, unbelievably, it spoke in the same rumbling growl they had heard before.

"One fateful, very delicious day, little Sauvanne fell down, down, down. Until she landed here, in the forgotten darkness outside of time and space. Welcome back Sauvanne! Looks like you're among the monsters again."

"Carpe Retractum!"

The tall werewolf snatched at the spot where Sauvanne stood, flashing thick crescent claws, but she was already lashed by a rope of dazzling red light, dragged back by Richter's spell until he caught her in his arms. Stepping in front of them, Maelys raised her Shield Charm, throwing the monster back. Richter pushed Sauvanne behind them and drew his own blade. Swiftly, he conjured a glittering helmet and vambraces to armor himself further.

Fighting monsters once more…Maelys felt the call to battle rising in her blood. No more struggling in the frustrating mire of this foreign dimension. Opponents she could save her friends from this time. This was turf most familiar to her. Flames poured forth from her wand, enveloping the tall werewolf until it howled. Ah, she exulted. It was so much better when her opponents could scream.

The other werewolf drew from its cloak…a wand? With a wordless gesture, Maelys felt something cleave her shield, shattering it and sending her staggering back. Before the smaller werewolf could follow up, the tall werewolf cuffed it with a scorched paw.

"This girl is mine! I alone will have the satisfaction!"

It lunged forward once more, but Richter blocked with his weapon, and its claws scraped futility against his armor. As it shrieked in frustration, Maelys spun her wand to target the beast.

It leered at her with amusement. "Come on then little inquisitor. Show us your feeble little fangs!"

Maelys gritted her teeth. "Confringo!"

The werewolf was thrown back with explosive force, impacting the cavern wall in a shower of blue moss. But almost immediately it was back on its feet, snarling with blazing eyes. Under its singed fur, Maelys could see its burns rapidly knitting back into wholeness as it deflected Richter's follow-up lunge.

Ah, werewolf regeneration. Par for the course, Maelys fumed. This was not supposed to happen. We waited until the time of the month when they were supposed to be in human form for a reason!

In the back, Sauvanne was flipping through her magic journal, babbling. "Werewolves are intensely magic-resistant…That's why wizards have such a hard time fighting them…Jinxing her won't help us in time..."

Richter had the right idea challenging the beasts with cold steel, Maelys thought as another jinx fizzled harmlessly against the werewolf's hide, but we lost our strengthening and healing potions when the Raptor crashed. We need another plan. She hissed a question at the distraught Sauvanne.

"Why can they speak? Why are they casting spells?"

The query shook Sauvanne out of her terrified shaking. Though shaky, her voice resonated with wonderment: "It must be the Wolfsbane potion. They still have their human minds, and human powers. But I've never seen werewolves do this before! Traditionally they surrender completely to their bestial state! Even…even Wolfsbane should have taken away most of their energy…"

Disturbing, Maelys thought. Dumb werewolves were what they had prepared for. The idea of going toe to toe with cunning, tactical, magic-resistant monsters on ground of their own choosing did not appeal to her. Still, at least the one they now faced was not using any particularly special tricks.

A nerve-shaking clang resounded as Richter's sword bounced off the cavern wall. Richter was back-stepping rapidly as he reached for his wand, but a brutal swing of the werewolf's claws rent his conjured armor, shattering it and sending him flying backwards into the cavern wall. He slid to the ground in a heap and did not move again.

As the werewolf bared its fangs and crouched, preparing to leap and take the final bite to seal his fate, Maelys felt her instincts kick in, to cast a spell to defend him or yank him out of harm's way. But the ghastly visage of horrible white jaws filled her vision for a moment, and she froze. Her wand felt slick in her suddenly sweating hands as she fought the fear and struggled to focus, half-suspecting she would be too late…

"C-carpe Retractum!" The hastily mumbled spell did not come from Maelys, but instead from Sauvanne.

The conjured rope flopped haphazardly through the air. It failed even to go near Richter. As it looped and knotted its way through the air, whether by chance or instinctual coincidence with its caster's intent, it miraculously completed a noose over the werewolf's head!

The monster howled in rage and humiliation, bloodcurdling screams filling the cave as Sauvanne's wand attempted to retract the rope, but instead forced her leashed victim headfirst into the dirt with a rigid thud. After much frenzied shaking it shattered the spell's magical grip on its neck and leveled a malicious gaze at the girls, eyeing Sauvanne in particular with a vorpal thirst.

Gulping, Maelys fixed her expression into a steely grimace and edged herself in front of Sauvanne, raising her arm to shield her as the beast leaped. Shame at her moment of weakness burned its way down Maelys's cheeks and throat, but she forced her feelings down. She could not let herself choke again.

"Petrificus Totalus" yelled Maelys, attempting to freeze the beast. The beast froze for a moment as it crashed to the cavern floor…then continued advancing on stiffened limbs as it shook off the curse, panting coarsely.

"Reducto!" cried Sauvanne, suddenly. The explosive spell glanced off the werewolf's head and impacted the ceiling, causing pebbles to plummet and bounce lightly off the werewolf's shoulders.

It looked upward and howled with gloating laughter. "Your aim sucks! And your magic sucks even more, you puny little witch!"

But Maelys immediately kenned Sauvanne's plan. "Bombarda!" Maelys yelled.

The monster folded its arms instinctively, but the blast was not aimed at it. Magical energy traced the cracks that Sauvanne's first attack had left in the ceiling, burrowing deep into the rock before erupting in a cataclysmic explosion. Debris fell from the ceiling, burying the surprised werewolf while it stood frozen by surprise in its defensive stance.

And yet, almost immediately the rubble shifted as the monster underneath casually began to dig its way out.

It won't be that easy for you or me, thought Maelys grimly.

"Inflamarae maxima!"

The hottest flames Maelys could conjure danced forth from her wand, fluttering merrily onto the heap of fallen stones where underneath their foe struggled vengefully. Maelys focused hard, trying to keep the wavering fire attached to the otherwise inflammable surface. If she succeeded, soon intense bellows and groans of agony would be issuing forth from the superheated rocks as the creature they buried began to cook alive. As Maelys knew well, even magical regeneration had its limits, and certainly did not protect the mind from agony.

"Enough," came a low, cold growl. "Finite incantatum."

Maelys's flames winked out.

"Cruel child. You're used to fighting monsters, it seems. But how about fighting men?"

The smaller werewolf's growl sounded strangely composed and erudite. Under the drab cloak, the other werewolf was short-haired, tremendously ugly and warped with strange growths and bulges covering its body...and balanced precariously on its narrow, wizened snout, Maelys caught a glimpse of…a monocle?

Well, whatever. Once more, a werewolf would burn.

"Inflamarae!"

Maelys waved her wand in a broad arc, causing flames to fan out rapidly, curving in a spiral aimed at the smaller wolf, who sneered.

"Never forget that we werewolves are wizards too!"

He met the attack with the same counter incantation, and this time Maelys felt the pressure of his magic like an iron gauntlet forcing her own spell aside.

"You don't have the foggiest idea what's happening here. The only thing you'll do is suffer eternally once I'm done with you!"

Even as he monologued Maelys felt the tension snap in the air as a curse took hold of her. Silent casting, she realized. She tried to call out to Sauvanne, and maybe Richter, if he was up, to coordinate their counter-attack – but her entire body was frozen.

Behind her she heard Sauvanne say, "Of course, it's a trap, this cavern is on the edge –" before the other girl's voice was abruptly cut off.

On all sides, the Sauvanne-figures suddenly blurred and widened, their eyes hollowing out into black pits as their expressions widened into ghastly smiles. Their outlines stretched until their bodies filled the entirety of Maelys's vision like a wall of hideous, grinning flesh. Bile rose in her throat as she fought to keep the fear at bay.

A mocking growl echoed in Maelys's ears. "Farewell, foolish child."

The ground of the cave burned away, or melted, as if it was a picture on a burning canvas. Maelys saw flakes of luminescent moss and gravel rise from the patch of cave underneath her, like threads of a fraying tapestry snagged by the wind, held aloft by a heatless updraft until they faded away in the air. Then Maelys felt herself sinking down, down, down, into the ground, as it turned into sucking, grasping black inkiness. The darkness rushed into her nose, her ears, her mouth, and it seized her with frigid arms as she screamed and suffocated until blissfully she knew nothing more.


End file.
